


The Dog Days

by dyingpoet



Series: Sprace one shots [31]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, M/M, Swimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 07:26:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17914448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyingpoet/pseuds/dyingpoet
Summary: It's the dead of summer and Race refuses to go swimming





	The Dog Days

**Author's Note:**

> yoyoyo today SUCKED so i forced myself to write this so i can feel productive, hope yall enjoy :)

“Gonna pass out from this heat, Racer.”

Race turned his head to look out at the river, catching sight of Spot’s head bobbing up and down while he was treading water. “Heat’s good for ya, builds character.”

Spot snorted before disappearing under the water once again. He’d been diving down to the bottom and getting rocks, among other things, for about half an hour; he was like a dog, really.

Race however, had been laying in the shade,  _ refusing  _ to whine, for the same length of time, and despite Spot’s jabs hadn’t set foot in the water. Wasn’t really his thing, was all. Okay, well, that wasn’t really all. Race had sort of been running a long con of sorts when it came to the river.

For the last ten or so years he’d known Spot, Race had avoided going out the the docks or the few clear stretches of riverbank whenever he was in Brooklyn. Somehow he’d managed to avoid suspicion for that whole time, but now it was the dead of summer, the hottest summer Race could ever remember, the air was so hot it almost weighed you down to breath in, and Race had the feeling he couldn’t avoid it any longer. ‘It’ being the fact that he couldn’t swim, not even a little, he sank like a stone every time. 

And, he’d seen Spot toss some of his own newsies in the river before when they claimed they couldn’t swim, and while he swore it was safe, Race wasn’t taking any chances. So, when he heard Spot reemerge from the water, gasping for air, he threw an arm over his eyes and tried to pretend like he was asleep. 

“I know you ain’t sleepin’,” Spot called from the water, sounding quite a bit closer than he had before. “I wasn’t even under a minute.”

Stubbornly, Race remained silent, trying to ignore the heat fighting its way into his little patch of shade and the complete and utter absence of any sort of breeze. 

There was the sound of footsteps and dripping water as Spot walked out of the river, and Race listened intently, trying to gauge how far away he was.

He was fairly sure Spot had stopped walking any further when a spray of cold water hit him and he gasped, sitting up reflexively. “Come  _ on _ .”

When he looked up Spot was chuckling lightly, still soaking wet despite having shaken off his hair in Race’s direction, again, like a dog he  _ swore _ . 

“ _ Me _ come on?” Spot said incredulously, moving to sit next to the frowning Race. “You’se the one who’s dyin’ in this heat, I’m tryin’ to cool ya off.”

He bumped shoulders with Race, cold water rubbing off onto his clothes, who shoved him away.

“Why the hell do you swim in that water anyway?” Race asked, deflecting. “Y’know they toss bodies in there after after they knock ‘em off.”

Spot snorted and shook his head. “That ain’t true, they just tell that to kids to keep ‘em from goin’ in and drownin’.”

He looked Race up and down, who was admittedly sweating a bit even though he’d taken off everything but his undershirt and trousers. They had to sell in a jacket and as soon as he’d sold his last paper he’d ripped the thing off, not that it made much of a difference. 

“But you ain’t a kid, c’mon Racer,” he said, raising the end of the sentence in what Race might argue was a whine, “first time in weeks we both finish sellin’ early and you’re gonna sit out in the heat when there’s a perfectly good river right there.”

Race nodded. “Sounds about right.”

“I could just throw ya in.”

“And I could just drown ya,” Race snapped back. He edged back though, the glint in Spot’s eye disconcerting. “Leave me alone.”

Spot sat in silence for a few seconds, looking from Race to the ground to the sky, picking at the grass underneath the two of them idly. 

“No.”

Race scrambled back just as Spot vaulted forward, letting out a strangled yelp when Spot got his wrist in one hand, and hooked another arm under his knees, starting for the river.

“Spot, put me  _ down _ ,” Race bit out, kicking his legs uselessly. He’d never hear the end of it if Spot knew he couldn’t swim, and there was a part of him that would just drown to avoid dealing with that. 

“I’m savin’ ya from yourself, Racer.”

As the water got closer, Race swallowed his pride as his heart rate picked up, shouting out, “I can’t swim, all right?”

Spot stopped abruptly, still not letting go of Race, and frowned down at him. “Huh?”

“Yeah,” Race snapped, “can’t swim, don’t know how, just let me  _ go _ .”

He took a few steps back from the bank when Spot dropped him, and fought the blush crawling up his neck, expecting Spot to burst into laughter at his expense. Nothing of that sort came though, and when Race looked at him next, he had his head cocked and was looking at Race more curiously than anything.

“You really can’t swim?” he asked.

“Not a bit,” Race said, digging the toe of his shoe into the dirt. “It don’t matter, anyway.”

“ _ ‘Course _ it does,” Spot said exaggeratedly, taking a few short steps toward Race. “It’s the middle of the summer and you’se livin’ in New York, we got water on all sides.”

“Not all sides-”

“Whatever,” Spot continued with an eye roll. “You gotta swim.”

Race crossed his arms and dropped his shoulders a bit in defiance. “Well I can’t, leave it alone.”

They looked at each other for a few seconds, Race still defensively despite Spot’s oddly receptive response. He didn’t trust it, and gave it a good two minutes before the guy was trying to drag him in.

“I could teach ya,” Spot said finally, breaking the silence.

Race frowned. “What? Why?”

“Because,” Spot answered, “you’se almost grown, you gotta learn sometime, and it ain’t like anyone else is offerin’.”

That last part came out bitten, and Race fought back a grin at how quickly Spot had tried to cover up his initial, almost compassionate, response. But still, having Spot has a teacher wasn’t the most comforting of thoughts.

“I don’t know-”

“C’mon,” Spot cut off, “I ain’t gonna let you drown, Kelly’d be on my ass if I did.”

Race did grin at that, taking a tentative step forward. “Be a dream come true for you, wouldn’t it?”

“Shut it.”

* * *

 

Half an hour of Race groaning and dragging his feet later, Spot had managed to get him to strip off his shirt and get waist deep in the water. And Race had to admit, the cold felt pretty nice.

“You just gotta kick your feet and move your arms like this,” Spot said for the thousandth time, moving his arms out in a circle before bring them back in toward his chest. “I got six year olds who’re doin’ it by themselves.”

“Good for them,” Race mumbled, stepping forward all the same. The water sent a child up his back as it lapped higher with every step, almost hitting his shoulder blades by the time he stopped next. “What now?”

Spot was swimming about five or six paces in front of him, and Race had been right, the guy wasn’t really cut out for teaching.

“I already  _ told  _ you, you just gotta walk out farther and do it.”

Race fought to keep his expression neutral as he balled his hands anxiously at his sides and glared at Spot. “Easy for you to say, y’know.”

“Easy for most of my littles to say, too.”

Letting out something between a whine and a growl, Race took a few more steps forward, feeling his feet start to lose contact with the soft river bottom underneath him. With the next step he was completely without purchase, and quickly he started kicking his feet out and struggling to move his arms like Spot said. 

“Hey, calm down.”

Spot swam closer to him, voice softer than it had been a moment before once Race couldn’t focus enough to keep the fearless facade up any longer. “You gotta relax a little, move slower.”

Race felt the water creeping higher, almost coming up over his chin, and he nodded jerkily, trying to move his arms and legs so that they pushed at the water more than clawing at it. “Like that?”

Spot nodded, making Race feel way too much like a kid in that moment, and he bit hard at the inside of his cheek, focusing more on breathing slower, fighting the initial panic that had rode up in his chest once he was treading by himself. 

When Spot reached out a hand to grab his arm, he kicked weakly at him under the water. “I got it.”

Spot raised his eyebrows, but backed off nonetheless, breathing a little bit heavy from having to tread himself. “Whatever you say.”

Once he wasn’t gasping so much for air, he could keep himself without making his muscles burn so much, and after a minute or two of Spot tossing out little comments, he felt sort of steady. Tired, but steady.

“You wanna go back?” Spot offered, noticing Race’s quick breathing, he guessed.

Race nodded, and turned to paddle back the few feet that put the river bottom back under his feet, feeling Spot close behind him. Once he got to wear the water came to about halfway up his chest he stopped, chest heaving more than he would have liked to admit. 

A hand clapped down on his shoulder, and he turned to see Spot panting with a hint of a grin on his face. “See, that wasn’t so hard once you shut up.”

Race shrugged his arm off, turning to shove weakly at his bare chest. “Once  _ you  _ shut up, you mean.”

Spot grinned for a second before making a grab at Race, both of them going down in the shallow water, inhaling way more water than air on the way as they wrestled for the upper hand.

The sun was setting, and more and more people were trying as best they could to get out of the heat and back to their houses, so if the wrestling turned into something else for a few minutes, nobody really had to know. Just them two and the East River. 

**Author's Note:**

> sup yall!!! hope you didnt hate this!!! hmu w some kudos/comments if you can!!!
> 
> also have a wonderful night i love you all <3 <3


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